January 03, 2015

On January 3, 1882, the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde disembarked from the ship that brought him from England to New York.

It was the beginning of what would be a high-profile, 11-month-long speaking tour of America and Canada.

As noted by the definitive website about that tour, Oscar Wilde in America, the ship arrived in port the night before but was held in quarantine until the next morning.

That’s apparently why the date some sources attach to a famous quotation attributed to Wilde is January 2, 1882.

In point of fact it was the morning of January 3rd when Wilde left the ship and went to the New York Customs House, where government agents asked their standard question: Do you have anything to declare?

“No one actually heard him say it, but it sounded like something Wilde would have said, and by the time literary biographer Arthur Ransome quoted it first in his 1912 study of the author, the quip already had passed into legend.”

Arthur Ransome himself didn’t put the famed wisecrack in quotation marks in his book, Oscar Wilde, a Critical Study. He simply alluded to it, writing that one of the famous things Wilde did in America was “to tell the Customs Officials that he had nothing to declare but his genius.”

The first known appearance of the witticism as an actual quote, with quotation marks, is in the biography Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions by Frank Harris, published in 1916.

That’s the source cited by most books of quotations that actually provide a source, instead of simply listing the quote as “attributed.”

“His phrase to the Revenue officers on landing: ‘I have nothing to declare except my genius,’ turned the limelight full upon him and excited comment and discussion all over the country.”

However, there’s no known reference to the legendary quote in any of the many newspaper articles written about Wilde during his North American tour.

Thus, the claim that it played a key role in focusing attention on Wilde during the tour seems to have been made up by Harris.

And, it appears likely that the quote itself was made up after Wilde died in 1900.

The most in-depth source of information on this question is probably the Oscar Wilde in America website. It’s maintained by John Cooper, an amazingly knowledgeable Wilde aficionado from England who now lives in the US.

On his web page about the quote, Cooper notes that Ransome and Harris both wrote their biographies of Wilde more than a decade after his death.

There is no known record of the quote in anything written while Wilde was still alive.

Based on his extensive research, Cooper classifies “I have nothing to declare except my genius” as a “dubious quotation.”

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About Me

I’ve been a writer, in one form or another, for more than 30 years. I’ve worked as a writer for magazines, ad agencies, government agencies, educational organizations and political campaigns. Now, I also blog about things that interest me, like quotations and vintage men's pulp adventure magazines. I recently edited two anthologies of classic stories from those magazines, which you can preview at www.WeaselsRipped.com and www.WalterKaylin.com. I'm currently working on two new book projects for the New Texture publishing company (www.NewTexture.com).